


Fervourless as I

by Kroki_Refur



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-02-20
Updated: 2008-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:54:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27660302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kroki_Refur/pseuds/Kroki_Refur
Summary: Tag to Mystery Spot. In February, Sam Winchester dies for the second time.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 2





	Fervourless as I

In February, Sam Winchester dies for the second time, and this time around there’s nobody left to sell their soul for him.  
  
He’s in a motel parking lot, and it’s cold ( _it’s February_ ), he’s cold ( _he’s bleeding out_ ) but Sam doesn’t go inside, can’t move, he’s numb ( _he’s dead_ ). The air burns Sam’s skin, but the blood burns it worse, and Sam closes his eyes and knows that he’s never going to see another February.  
  
\----  
  
 **Before**  
  
In June, the heat is sticky and sluggish like a live thing, crawling across the back of Sam’s neck and dragging slow fingers of discomfort up his spine. The motel they’re in doesn’t have A/C, doesn’t even look like it knows what A/C is, and Sam complains but Dad tells him to suck it up and open a window, like _that’s_ going to do anything other than bring in even more heat from outside. Dean dumps a bucket of ice-water over Sam’s head without warning, and Sam yells so loud he gives himself a headache. Dad raises his eyebrows and tells Dean to clean up the mess, and Dean grins and grins like he’s got everything he wants out of life.  
  
\----  
  
 **After**  
  
In March, Sam tears Bobby’s library apart, book by book. He doesn’t sleep more than four hours a night the entire month, and by the time he’s done, he’s at least glanced at every page of every text that Bobby owns. Bobby stands in the doorway with a mug of coffee, and when Sam closes his eyes ( _no more Februaries_ ) and opens them again and the maelstrom of discarded paper and crumpled notes is still there, he pushes back his hat and sighs.  
  
“Ain’t like it’s the only library around, though,” he says, but not like he believes it.  
  
  
  
\----  
  
 **Before**  
  
In December, Sam goes on his first hunt – nothing flashy, just your standard haunting – and doesn’t screw it up. There’s school tomorrow, and Sam’s palms are sweating fiercely, and for the first time he figures out why Dad is so against the length of his hair ( _but he won’t cut it, not for that_ ). It’s dark and the old abattoir stinks, and Sam just wishes he could be at home. And then Dean shouts something and Sam turns to see a person standing there, a person but not a person, and Sam’s studied this, God, but he’s never _seen_ it before. The person – woman ( _notwoman_ ) – flickers like she’s just a trick of the light, and then Sam catches the canister of salt that Dean tosses and moves automatically, endless hours of training translating into action that’s too fast for his brain to understand. When it’s done, he feels a little sick with adrenaline, but buzzed, high like he hasn’t been since he stopped playing soccer, and Dean slaps him on the back and says _you’re almost a real boy, now, Samantha_ , and Sam socks him in the arm and smiles so hard his cheeks hurt.  
  
\----  
 **After**  
  
In May, Sam wakes up to find he’s fallen asleep on the floor ( _again_ ), limbs twisted uncomfortably, surrounded by the disaster area that once passed for a motel room. His body’s nothing but aches, crimps in his neck, eyes swollen and burning, and it’s hard to remember that he’s only just twenty-five years old.   
  
He doesn’t get up, doesn’t even straighten out his arms and legs, and when the phone rings he clenches his fist, because there’s only one person he wants to get a call from, and the knowledge that it’s not that person calling now sits in his gut like a solid weight. He closes his eyes and opens them, but the water-stained ceiling is still there and the phone still buzzes, insistent.  
  
Whoever it is ( _Bobby; it’s always Bobby_ ) calls again mid-afternoon, and this time Sam does get up, barely able to stand after lying in the same position for hours. “What?” he says, and he hears Bobby’s concern through three states’ worth of cell-phone signal.  
  
“Heard about a haunting down in Arizona,” Bobby says. “Thought it might be your kind of thing.”  
  
Sam just stares at a mark on the wall. It’s not _his thing_ , none of it. It’s never been _his thing_.  
  
Bobby sighs, like a ghost on the line. “You can’t go on like this, Sam. You need to find a way to deal with it, or it’s going to kill you, too.”  
  
Sam looks around the room, insanity evident in every messy stack of paper and strewn across the floor in filthy clothes and gun-oil stains. Nothing can kill him.  
  
He’s already dead.   
  
\----  
  
 **Before**  
  
In September, Sam Winchester dies for the first time, but he doesn’t remember it. He remembers waking up, though, and he remembers the way Dean said _one year, I got one year_. He remembers _September_ , he’s never going to forget it, because by the time next September rolls around, he needs to have found a way to save Dean.  
  
\----  
  
 **After**  
  
In June, Sam climbs out of the pit he’s dug for himself. He packs Dean’s stuff away and puts it in the back of the Impala; he buys folders and organises his notes, plastic wallets for each page, dividers and summaries and indexes so he knows where everything is. He strips down and cleans their – his – entire arsenal, and creates a system of storage that makes so much more sense than the one that ( _Dean_ ) used to exist. He tosses out all of the broken things that have accumulated around him over the months, buys new supplies, stocks the first-aid kit, lays in more ammo. He buys a pink toothbrush, and he doesn’t think about why.  
  
When he’s done, he burns the things that don’t fit, slings his duffle over his shoulder, and goes to find a haunting in Arizona.  
  
\----  
  
 **Before**  
  
In April, Sam passes out from blood loss in the back of the Impala and comes to nineteen and a half hours later on Bobby’s couch. Dean’s face is grey in the washed-out morning light, and his eyes are closed, and for a moment Sam panics and thinks _dead, he’s dead, Dean is dead_ , before he tries to move and realises that _he’s_ the one who’s ( _dead_ ) hurt. His stomach is ripped from side to side, a mess of stitches and angry flesh, and it feels like whatever painkillers Bobby had available were about as strong as kiddie aspirin, and it hurts worse than almost anything Sam's ever felt before.  
  
Two weeks later, Sam gets jumped in Minnesota and wakes up in a ditch with a burning in his stomach that feels like hellfire, and for five days after that there’s nothing but pain and confusion, puking and fever and it hurts like he's being turned inside out, and none of it, _none_ of it compares to that one dreadful moment when Sam woke up and thought his brother was dead.  
  
\----  
  
 **After**  
  
In September, Bobby calls ( _again_ ) and Sam ignores him ( _again_ ). In September, Sam shoots two young men ( _werewolves_ ) without flinching. In September, Sam finds a ritual to track down divine entities and loses four pints of blood before he figures out it’s a forgery. In September, Sam crosses the country twice, but he doesn’t notice the difference between California and Massachusetts.  
  
Sam doesn’t save his brother in September, just like he doesn’t save him in October, and it’s not till November that he remembers about dying for the first time at all.  
  
\----  
  
 **Before**  
  
In February, Dean comes back from the store with bubblegum-flavoured toothpaste. Sam doesn’t even know until the next morning, and then it takes him a moment to figure it out because he’s too busy being confused by the fact that his toothbrush has disappeared and the only one available is pink. Dean gargles innocently, and Sam stares at the toothbrush and then at the toothpaste and thinks that only Dean could find _bubblegum_ -flavoured toothpaste in a town that’s barely large enough to boast a stop sign. The stuff tastes disgusting, and Sam wastes a moment wishing that his brother wasn’t so annoying.  
  
He takes it back a hundred times, but it’s never enough.  
  
\----  
  
 **After**  
  
In February, Sam knows he was wrong. He’s not dead ( _he’s dead_ ), and February’s _there_ , just there one day when he opens his eyes like it’s any other month. But there’s no reason that a new February should make him feel so much further away from the old one ( _no more Februaries_ ), and Sam doesn’t entertain things that have no reason behind them, not any more.  
  
In February, Sam gets a call from Bobby that he doesn’t ignore. In February, Sam pleads with a god for something that he doesn’t deserve and can’t live without. In February, Sam wakes up to find that February never happened after all.  
  
Sam doesn’t save his brother in February, but he does save himself. For now.  
  
\----  
  
In February, Dean Winchester dies for the hundred-and-second time, and this time around there’s no going back.  
  
He’s in a motel parking lot, and it’s cold ( _it’s February_ ), he’s cold ( _he’s bleeding out_ ) but Sam doesn’t go inside, can’t move, he’s numb ( _he’s dead_ ). The air burns Sam’s skin, but Dean’s blood burns it worse, and Sam closes his eyes and opens them again, but nothing changes, Dean’s still heavy in his arms, and Sam knows that he’s never going to see this February again.  
  



End file.
